Geraldton to Perth

We spent a week in the city of Geraldton (the first city we’ve been to in months!) and then a few days driving down to Perth.

Geraldton

15 years ago we really weren’t very impressed with Geraldton, but we decided to stop there anyway for a while so we could have internet for work, do some shopping and get COVID vaccines. Geraldton has really improved! The foreshore was really nice and they had some great playgrounds right along the coast.

There was also a really great memorial on the hill to the HMAS Sydney (see my blog on Shark Bay for more about this shipwreck). They did a really good job using boat parts and designing the memorial as a boat.

The one big negative was that we stayed in a caravan park that had the best reviews out of a bad bunch. It was across the street from the beach and close to the city center. BUT, it was close to the port and the trains to the port went just behind the caravan park. All night trains went through blowing their horns and some kind of siren sound!

Hutt Lagoon

After Geraldton, we drove south towards Port Dennison / Dongara. On the way, we stopped to check out a pink lake called Hutt Lagoon. The lagoon wasn’t full, but you could still see the pinkness. The pink is caused by a certain type of bacteria that grows in the over-salty lagoon.

Port Dennison

We stayed the night at a nice little town on the coast called Port Dennison. Unfortunately it was really, boiling hot (43C – 110F)! We jumped into the sea for a cold swim and had a look around the town in the evening, but really spent most of our time that day in the caravan with the AC on! And then, they had a power outage the next morning and said it wouldn’t be restored until the afternoon, so we left early in the morning.

Cervantes & The Pinnacles

Next stop was the tourist town of Cervantes. This town was close to the Pinnacles National Park which was very cool! It was still boiling outside, but luckily they do a drive-through of the park so we could stay in the air-conditioned car.

They’re not entirely sure how the pinnacles were formed, but the theories involve an old forest, the desert sand dunes blowing over the trees from the east, then the high-salt sand from the sea blowing the other way in from the sea over the trees, and this resulting in the trees turning to rock and then the rocks eroding.

It’s a really cool landscape – feels like you’re on the moon. It doesn’t really show up well in the photos but most of the pinnacles are really big – much taller than us.

Stromatolites

Cervantes also had a lake where we could see stromatolites. Since we weren’t able to see them up close in Shark Bay, we wanted to take this opportunity to see them. They had a nice little boardwalk to a lake with some info and an up-close view of them, and some info signs explaining what they are and why they’re important (a good bit of ‘worldschooling’ for the kids 🙂 )

After our day and night in Cervantes, it was time to drive that last bit to Perth…